Death's Head Legion (12 page)

Then he pulled out a photograph of a sculpture that Renault explained came from around the third century that showed Titus Flavius Decimus, a Roman governor general who wore the
pilum
embedded into the chest plate of his armor.

The next depiction was a tapestry of a fifth century Visigoth conqueror, Alaric, anointing his barbarian warriors with what at first glance appeared to be a short sword, but very closely resembled the spear.

“Alaric and his horde went on to sack Rome in A.D. 410,” Renault said.

Then the professor unrolled a painting of a man who looked about fifty. He was bearded and wore what appeared to be sixth or seventh century Arabic dress—green turban, a long red embroidered shirt—and held a curved sword in his hand.

“By the seventh century the spear made its way east into Arabia. Thus began the stories of the ghuls. Notice the handle of this warlord's scimitar?”

It took a moment, but there it was. Incorporated into the elaborate cross guard—the tip of Antonius's spear.

“Holy . . .” Rucker said.

“Exactly,” Renault said.

“
Mein Gott
,” Deitel added.

“Probably not,” Chuy answered.

“Still.”

“Indeed,” Renault said. “Apparently, after one of the Turkish invasions of Europe in the fifth century, the spear was found in Wallachia and made its way to the Middle East. The story of it was written about extensively by Abdul Alhazred, the mad poet of Sanaa in Yemen, who lived somewhere around A.D. 700, during the period of the Ommiade caliphs. Alhazred wrote that he saw it carried into the great southern desert of Arabia—the Roba El Khaliyeh, or ‘empty space' of the ancients, and the Dahna, or ‘Crimson' desert of the modern Arabs, inhabited, they say, by protective evil spirits, flesh-eating ghuls, and mad dervishes..

A chill wind blew off the water.

“I believe that was carried by the caliphs all the way up until the time when the caliph's forces marched on Europe. They were turned back by a man as bloody and cruel as the forces he faced, Vlad Tepes. The Wallachian prince took the spear back from the invading forces, returning it—intentionally or coincidentally—to its very place Antonius is believed to have died: Poenari.”

Chuy crossed himself and kissed his crucifix.

Rucker pinched the bridge of his nose.

“The Son of the Dragon,” Terah said.

“That Vlad Tepes? You mean ‘Draculea,' from the stories? That isn't rea—” Deitel started to say but stopped mid-word when he saw the look Chuy and Rucker were giving him.

“Of course it is,” Deitel finished.

“Use caution in your words, Doctor,” Chuy said. “Mocking the shadows and speaking their names invoke power.”

“Yes, Dracula,” Rucker said.

Renault showed them a fifteenth century portrait. It was the classic rendering of the infamous Romanian with his long, flowing black hair and broad black mustache. He wore a royal velvet-topped crown with an elaborate headpiece.

“Notice what he is holding?” Renault asked.

“A scepter?” Terah said.

“That's no scepter,” the professor said. They all saw it now—the spear.

Renault continued.

“After Vlad was supposedly killed in battle with the Ottomans near Budapest, his castle at Poenari—his primary residence—was abandoned. No monarch after wanted to inhabit it. No one squatted there in the lavish ruins, despite the many tribes of Roma who traveled through the area.

“The stories of Vlad rising to hunt in the night and haunt the countryside grew over the centuries into the legends you know today of the vampire folk. He was spotted by English visitors as late as the early 1800s.”

“But vampires?” Deitel said again. “Like from the novel?”

“Don't be surprised, Deitel,” Chuy said. “People have discovered entire islands of extinct species, and explorers have documented the talking primates of Himalayas. Rucker and I have met the treefolk of Laos—they live to be two hundred and they have skin like chameleons. They can glide between the trees of the upper jungle canopy. You saw the stuffed chupacabra at the Driskill. That was no hoax. Those things aren't the living dead, but they are blood suckers of a different sort, and damn hard to kill. That vampires have become the stuff of folklore and fiction doesn't mean much to me. The living dead that feast on blood are even found in the Old Testament.”

“There it is again,” Rucker said. “Blood. And the living dead.”

“Every legend has a truth at its heart,” Chuy said.

Renault cleared his throat.

“Regardless of what we believe now,” he said, “many in the Balkans swear by the stories of the Son of the Dragon and his vampire followers. In 1888 an earthquake brought down a portion of the castle atop Poenari—it stands fifteen hundred feet above the valley below—and it's said that a Romani tribe there found the spear, which Vlad had hidden in the walls of his fortress.”

Terah shivered and Rucker put an arm around her. She didn't resist.

“Do we know which Romani tribe?” Rucker asked. “I mean, as far as I know there are literally hundreds of them throughout Moldova, Transylvania, and Wallachia. Could the same tribe even be around?”

“There are some indications,” Renault said, pulling out a lengthy page of handwritten notes. “These tribes are patrilineal, and for nomads, their tribes are quite stable.”

Deitel threw up his hands. “Now we're trying to find one of how many hundred Gypsy tribes?”

“Not hundreds,” Renault said. “I've narrowed it to less than a dozen.”

Filotoma snatched the paper away from Renault, who looked stunned for a second but heeded Chuy's sotto voce plea to wait a moment.

“No. No. Yes,” Filotoma said, looking at the professor's notes. “Those peoples owe Filotoma large . . . No. No. He and his are
ffffttt.
Dead. Yes . . .”

Finally, the Greek looked up, smiling.

“Everything is donkey-whorey. Nick knows how to find the right tribe,” Filotoma said.

Rucker looked around the table.

“So we're off to vampire country to look for a holy dingus that can raise the dead being held by Gypsy mystics. Any objections? Everyone still in?”

“Aye,” Chuy said.

Terah nodded.

“Jawohl,”
Deitel said.

They knew Renault was in, if he could handle the rigors of the trip.

“Is settled then,” Filotoma said.

The big man stretched and scratched his belly.

“Come. Is time for dessert. We have something to put skin on your bones. You're all too small. Need to be big like Nick,” he said. “In morning we start odyssey north to beat the Huns.”

“We?” Rucker asked.

“Why not? I need to get away from all this business and pleasures. Is time for adventure. I know the Romani. Plus I have two ex-wives coming to visit here next week. Is best if they visit each other,” Filotoma said. “Your promissory note from Prometheus is good as your word, Fox, so is still profit. Meanwhile, drink up!
Opa!
”

L
ate in the evening, Deitel was having trouble sleeping—despite all the wine and heavy delicacies Filotoma had practically forced on the group. He wondered what the hell he was doing, chasing some legend across the world. Now they were actually talking about finding Gypsies who made their traveling circuit around Castle Dracula.

Deitel had been raised in the grand tradition of the great Prussian thinker Immanuel Kant. Kant's writings on the metaphysics of morals and his critique of pure reason had guided and informed Deitel through his formative years. Kant's concept of categorical imperatives had been the prime motivator in his life. He believed, as Kant taught, that there are imperatives must be obeyed wholly, regardless of our will or desires, and that the true measure of good was that it benefited others and not self. He believed in the unconditional obligation of sacrifice.

Such an ethical outlook took its toll on Deitel, however. Sometimes he would ask why it was that fulfilling his own desires was considered immoral, but serving others was the only morality. What did that make mankind, he wondered, but a daisy chain of obligation? He'd found that measuring his worth solely by how he could best serve others ate away at his self-esteem. So he withdrew. He wrestled with angst and confusion over his sense of morality and duty to God, man, and his country. It made him feel like he was watching his life from the outside, living it at a distance, and leaving no real footprints.

Then he'd been forced out of the comforts of his home, and found himself surrounded by people who lived in the here and now. They relished every moment of life and they harbored no guilt about it. They had no compunction about measuring themselves by the objective standard of what they were worth to others in terms of dollars and cents. They did not see this as crass, but simply a reflection of reality. They lived without apology or contradiction. And they embraced him without question.

Of course, he also asked himself where had dealing with these people gotten him?

He was being chased by Nazi agents, rappelling from balloons, traveling with crazies, running from the SS, raiding the executive mansion of the Yank homeland, fighting monsters, and was now about to venture into the heart of vampire country after an artifact rumored to raise the dead.

He felt incredible. And it was incredible that he felt incredible.

That's when he saw Rucker and Terah walking along the edge of the beach, holding hands and with the gentle inland sea waves lapping at their ankles. He watched Rucker sweep Terah in his arms and kiss her long and deeply as the moonlight reflected off the sea.

He looked away, embarrassed to find himself spying on them.

The two had been so incomprehensible to him just a few days ago—confusing, ill-suited, messy, passionate, chaotic, and raw. Deitel turned and left them to their privacy. He thought now he was beginning to understand them.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Western Tower

Office of Reichsführer Himmler

Wewelsburg Castle

Greater German Reich

R
einhard Heydrich hated delivering bad news to Reichsführer Himmler, but only a coward would send a subordinate in his stead. For all of Heydrich's many sins, cowardice was certainly not one he possessed in any measure.

Stopping in the hallway at a mirror, he made sure his collar was perfect and that he didn't have a single blond hair out of place. Then he knocked exactly three times on Reichsführer's door.

He entered, gave his salute, and read from the dispatch he'd just received.

“Sir, I beg to report that we have just received a communiqué from Lieutenant Skorzeny.”

“Yes? He has the location of the Spear of Destiny?” Himmler asked, his otherwise dead eyes lighting up at the prospect.

“No sir. He reports that he was, um . . . his word was ‘bushwhacked,' by Rucker and his team of Freehold agents. Aboard the Lufthansa airship. They rescued Professor Renault and escaped. Lieutenant Skorzeny was apparently able to escape his captors by leaping from the cargo bay and catching himself on the cargo netting along the zeppelin's underside. He reports he is back on the trail of Professor Renault and the spear.”

Himmler said nothing for a moment. He seethed. Finally he spoke.

“How did this happen?” the Reichsfürher asked.

“It appears Rucker escaped custody in Rome, crippling at least eight of our SD agents. He then led an assault on our embassy in Rome where he freed his fellow agents,” Heydrich said. “How he managed to get aboard the Lufthansa airship is still under investigation.”

Heydrich placed the Gestapo file on Rucker before the Reichsführer. It detailed Rucker's service in the Great War and his subsequent activities. There was a photo from the man's military file, a decade old. A grainy surveillance photo taken in London dated 1925. A brochure from the commercial air service company he was part owner of. And a photo of Rucker with his arms around two obviously German women, leering from behind sunglasses, wearing a cowboy hat and giving a V for victory sign.

Himmler's face reddened and his thin lips got even thinner.

“Rucker! God damn that man!” he said. “First he interfered with the expedition to Tibet. Then that business in Casablanca. Every time I turn around the man is sabotaging our efforts.”

Himmler slammed the file down on his desk and paced over to the window.

“Let it be known—henceforth the American gangster pirate Sean Fox Rucker and his associates are enemies of the state,” he said. “I will have his head on a pike and I will place the pike at the entrance to Konigstein Castle. Get his picture and an alert to every guard post, every troop barracks, every police station, every embassy, every SD and Gestapo agent, and every border guard throughout the Reich.”

The fact that Himmler was raising his voice was extraordinary. And frightening. Himmler was widely known for keeping calm under the most trying of circumstances; his fury was usually silent and deadly.

“Herr Reichsführer, there is more. Der Schädel was thrown from the airship by the Texas gangster,” Heydrich reported.

The Reichsführer's face went pale.

Heydrich had not seen many emotions on his master's face, and this one was unprecedented. It disturbed Heydrich to his core. He recognized the emotion. It was commonplace among his underlings and the general population of the Reich.

Fear.

Raw, naked fear.

“But that's . . . he . . . It's not possible,” Himmler said, his voice cracking and his mouth dry and coppery.

“It's verified, sir,” Heydrich said.

Himmler gripped the edges of his desk. His hands trembled.

It took several minutes, but the Reichsführer regained his composure.

“The Führer will not be pleased,” Himmler said.

“Sir, there is some good news,” Heydrich said, keeping his voice as steady as possible.

“Yes?”

“Lieutenant Skorzeny reported that he was on the tail of the gangsters. He believes Rucker and his team of agents know exactly in Wallachia where the spear is hidden.”

Himmler nodded. “What is the status of Poenari Citadel? Have our men and Dr. Übel established their base of operations yet?”

“
Jawohl
, Reichsführer, they have the volunteer Death's Head Legion, a hundred scientists and technicians, a company of storm troopers, five
wehr-
wolves, and three
nachtmenn
on station. In addition, there are provisions for two weeks, and all the necessary lab equipment for Project Gefallener. The Fat Man says his Luftwaffe can resupply the garrison at any time necessary.”

“Zehr gut,”
Himmler said. “Send a squad of storm troopers from Poenari to link up with Skorzeny. Together they can track Rucker and capture his team after they locate the Spear of Destiny. And then Dr. Übel can begin his tests on the Death's Head Legion. I'm sure he can find something to do until we get the spear to him.”

Heydrich saluted, clicked his heels, and spun about 180 degrees. As he walked toward the door, Himmler stopped him.

“
Jawohl,
sir?” Heydrich asked.

“Inform Skorzeny not to fail me again,” Himmler said. “I want that spear, and then I want Rucker's head.”